Short Hair
by Arget Cross
Summary: Marc tries to cut her hair with questionable results. Lon'qu fumbles around at being a father. Panne and Olivia watch said fumbles. Really just an excuse to write haircut fluff and explain bewildering side braids. From the Those of Grima canon, but stands alone.


Lon'qu found Marc kneeling in front of the smoky mirrors in the Ylissean ballroom. She had tucked herself between a weapons rack and a dusty barrel. Had it not been for the dagger glinting in the noon sunlight, she would have been nearly impossible to notice.

The dagger was at odds with her slight arms in the same way that the once glittering ballroom was with its wartime arsenal. It made Lon'qu's stomach turn.

He moved without a sound through the stacks of crates, but, like every child committing a crime, Marc gave pause and looked around the hall with the expectation of being caught. That preparation did nothing to stop her actual shock at seeing her father standing off to the side and she dropped the dagger into her lap. It slid to the ground with a clatter.

"Are you hurt? What have I said about playing with weapons?" Lon'qu rushed over to her side, checking to see if she cut herself, forgetting the more tactful approach he had planned in his mind. Marc sullenly allowed him to check her arms and to pluck the dagger away but she refused to meet his eyes. One hank of hair fell across her flushed cheeks and, looking down at her, that was when he realized what he was kneeling in.

Marc's brown-black hair laid scattered on the tiles, forming soft curls around his feet. She had hacked off her beautiful head of hair with the dagger so now it curled haphazardly around her ears, all except the last lock that hung long around her right cheek.

"Marc, if you wanted a haircut, I could have done it for you." He said, trying to remain calm while his mind flew to story after story that Maribelle had regaled to him of pubescent children and their odd ideas of 'rebellion' and 'self-expression'. He had thought at the time, like many of Maribelle's dramatic proclamations, to be simply an exaggeration. Now he was unsure.

Marc gave him a skeptical look at Lon'qu's own haphazard hair, desperately in need of a trim, that felt far too piercing to have come from a ragged looking child.

They sat there in silence for a while, Marc tugging the uneven ends of her hair and Lon'qu trying to puzzle out the thin press of her mouth. He did not understand where such a move would come from, but he had been a father long enough to know there was something else in his daughter's defiant stare.

"How did you get in?" He asked finally when her stubbornness outlasted his concern.

"I asked Uncle Gaius how to pick the lock. And this is the only place that still has mirrors that's not, like, the Exalt's personal bathroom." Marc replied, clearly eager to divert the burden of her crime to Lon'qu's least favorite of her 'uncles'. Even worst was that he was her technical godfather, as Haura, for some unearthly reason he had never figured out, decided Gaius was more likely to survive and be able to take care of their children instead of any other better option, including her beloved commander, Chrom. Lon'qu had the strong suspicion Gaius' wife with her terrifying hexes and borderline psychotic devotion to Haura had something to do with it.

Well, she hadn't been wrong on the likely to survive part.

"Am I in trouble?" Marc asked, uncertainty coloring her voice. Whatever punishment she expected, it was supposed to come with scolding or cold disappointment. Lon'qu just looked confused.

"Should you be?"

Marc blinked. "If I'm not, can I have the knife back so I can cut off this last bit?"

That brought Lon'qu back to a semblance of normalcy. "No, no you may not. I said no playing with blades. We'll get Olivia to fix the rest."

"Papa, you can't ask Queen Olivia to fix my hair!" Marc sputtered, turning incredibly red. "That's just- then Inigo will know and she's the queen, for Naga's sake! She shouldn't be fixing my hair. It's not right...!"

Lon'qu smirked at his daughter's embarrassment, making her howl all the more.

"Come along, otherwise you'll be wearing that horsetail all tomorrow."

"Don't call it a horsetail!" Marc pleaded, her face now becoming an interesting shade of purple and she puffed out her cheeks. He poked her puffed cheeks until she deflated with a wet sputter.

"Isn't that what they're called?"

Marc's grin dimmed and she stared at him, bewildered, before comprehension dawned on her face.

"Ponytails. Gods, Papa, they're called ponytails. And you said you were going to cut my hair."

"Yes, yes, you're always right. Just like your mother." He said absentmindedly. He got up, put the dagger back into the rack, and pulled Marc to her feet. "Alright, march soldier. To the gallows."

"I'll tell Queen Olivia you said that." She supplied as he steered her by the shoulders to the ballroom doors. The uneven ends of her hair tickled the back of his hands.

"If that is your threat, young lady, you need to strategize better."

"I'll tell Aunt Maribelle then. Or Aunt Lissa. Or..."

And Marc paused for dramatic effect before wrenching open the door to the ballroom. Lon'qu noticed the scratches around the keyhole and a footprint on the door from where someone with small feet had kicked it- evidently finesse was not something Gaius had imparted on her.

"I'll tell Aunt Cherche."

This froze Lon'qu behind her and when she looked back, his stiff expression drained the laughter on Marc's.

"Marc, has anyone ever told you have too many aunts? As far as I knew, neither Haura nor I ever had a sister." Lon'qu said after a beat. Hearing the levity, although a little forced, in her father's voice only gave her permission to charge forward again.

"It's 'cause I don't have a mom and I need someone to give me girl advice. Sorry, Papa, but you suck at girl advice. No offense." Marc replied as they strode hand in hand down the halls of Ylisse, her horsetail fanning against her cheek.

"It does not concern me. You're the only girl I have to impress nowadays." He said and Marc leaned against him. Then she increased her weight in a vain attempt to throw him off balance. Considering she only came up slightly past his waist and was too thin from wartime rations, he was barely encumbered as they moved down the hall, but Lon'qu staggered slightly to the side to let her win.

They reached the door to Olivia's room where Panne stood guard. One look at Marc had Panne fixing a disconcerting red-eyed glare at Lon'qu.

"What on earth have you done to this child, Lon'qu?"

"It was me." Marc said in a very small voice and, to her credit, she did not to try to hide behind Lon'qu's longcoat when Panne stared at her instead. He could not help but think of how the bunnies he had seen Stahl raise groomed their young. It was not hard to imagine Panne picking Marc up by the scruff of her neck.

"We were going to ask Olivia to fix it as I, er, have no experience with the matter." Lon'qu helped his daughter out, feeling some of Marc's shame. Panne bent down and made a humming noise as she examined Marc's job. Then she straightened as if she decided something and said,

"Olivia is sleeping, but I can fix it for her."

Lon'qu frowned. This was news to him. "In the middle of the day?"

"She has been ill. I could smell it on her two days ago but she insisted on sending off the troops to help the eastern villages with a dance. The soldiers benefited but now she has a cold. You can guard her door while I fix your pup's hair." Panne said. Lon'qu nodded, still worried. Marc looked anxiously at the both of them.

She knew that Panne had also been part of the Shepherds, but, since the children had been born, Panne had stayed to fight in Ylisse while Lon'qu had been in Regna Ferox until it fell. And unlike Olivia, Maribelle, and Gregor, Panne was not a letter writer. So the taguel warrior was a complete mystery to Marc aside from her sniveling son that she and Owain liked to 'hunt' for fun.

Still, her father seemed more or less at ease in her presence, unlike how he often would grip her hand very tightly and clench his teeth when the Ylissean noblewomen tried to flirt with him. Marc did not like it when they approached during the dances, all coy and making comments about 'his beautiful daughter'. She didn't want to be beautiful- she wanted to defend their walls like Khan Flavia and her father!

"Beauty is something to be treasured in this rotten world." Queen Olivia had told her once when Marc had let slip her objections during those long, terribly boring balls. "Your mother was very beautiful but it didn't mean she was not strong. It simply meant she could inspire people to follow behind her. Just like how these dances give hope for the people. The strength of two arms can only do so much- the strength of a hundred can overthrow a conqueror. That is something Chrom used to always say."

"Like how your dances give hope to the people and then they can fight better!" Marc had replied, not wanting to see the queen sad as she always became upon mentioning her late husband's name. That turned her as pink as her hair and all the elegant clothes and fancy hair did not hide her bluster afterwards.

"Go with Aunt Panne. She'll take care of you." Lon'qu said and although Panne arched an eyebrow at her adoption into his family, she nodded seriously at her new charge. So he watched Marc get led away by Panne and then leaned against the wall, sword resting in his hand.

"Panne, are you there?"

He could hear the faint whisper of Olivia's voice through the door.

"No, Olivia, it's me, Lon'qu. Panne had to go...do a haircut" He called quietly through the door, cringing at the way it sounded. At once, the door opened and Olivia stepped out, looking very satisfied.

"Oh good. She's gone. 'Do a haircut?' What on earth does that mean?"

"Marc tried to cut her own hair." He admitted.

Olivia laughed her fairy tinkle laugh. "It didn't go so well, did it? Inigo once got his hands on my stage makeup and styling gel and had hair worse than yours for the next two days."

"I thought you sick and resting?" He said in a slightly huffy voice. Despite Marc having the bad haircut, for some reason he had been the one on the receiving end of all the hair criticism today.

"Nonsense. Like a little chill like that would get me down. She's just so... concerned. It's sweet but there are things I should be doing-" Olivia sabotaged her own argument by beginning to cough into her sleeves. Now he looked closer, she did look pinker than usual. "Oh bother, now you're probably going to make me go back to bed..."

"And if you get worse? Go back to bed, Olivia, I'm not going to babysit you until you faint from running around the castle." He said gruffly. It was a testament to how long they had been friends that his first instinct was to tuck her right back into bed and bring her something hot to drink. They glared at each other for a while, but in this, Lon'qu was the undisputed scowling master. Even Maribelle had lost in their staring matches although she had been perfectly capable of demolishing him in a battle of wits afterwards. He trailed in after her when she slunk back into the room.

"As if I haven't had worse. You're the worst hypocrite too, always training when you are wounded and about to keel over." She grumbled as he pulled her thrown covers back for her.

"You're such a stubborn woman yourself. You won't do your children any good if they catch what you have."

"That's... a low tactic." Olivia muttered, already looking drowsy as she clambered into bed. "Can you stay a while?"

"Fine. But I'm not Frederick. I'm not going to fetch you tea or massage your feet." He sighed as he tucked her in.

"Would be too embarrassed...for Frederick to do that for me." She murmured. She began to close her eyes before she suddenly sat up. "Make sure Inigo eats his vegetables today and stops skipping meals. Lucina needs to stretch otherwise she's going to injure herself. She trains so hard-"

"Enough! I'll check in on them. Get some rest." He said and she flopped down finally. Before he knew what he was doing, he bent down, brushed away some errant pink strands, and kissed Olivia's feverish forehead, like he did for Marc every night. After her breathing evened out, he snuck back out, careful to shut the door without a sound.

The enormity of what he did sank in when he was standing outside her door again and he started to feel feverish himself. That had been Olivia, not Marc, not someone he was bound to by blood, only friendship and history. He had changed and he had not even realized it until it was so natural that he had forgotten to be anxious.

The sound of Marc and Panne coming up the hallway broke his reverie.

"Who is this? Panne, what is this small thing you found and brought back?"

"Papa, you suck." Marc pouted. Panne had done a good job indeed, fixing the wavy ends so they tapered nicely and framed her dimpled cheeks. But-

"You left the horsetail." He pointed out.

"It's a warrior's braid." Panne said and while it was now neatly braided down the side of Marc's face, to Lon'qu, it just made it look like the braided horsetails that Sumia and Ricken liked to put on their mounts. Lon'qu could not put his finger on why it looked so familiar until he looked upon Panne and realized she wore braids as well, around her ears. Over fifteen years of knowing her and he had never really realized her ears were in there!

"It looks good." He said to Marc's beaming face.

"Aunt Panne said Mama and Queen Olivia and her all wore warrior braids. Said it was a good look for a young warrior." Marc said.

Lon'qu tried to remember whether Olivia wore braids when she fought. It was not hard to imagine but he felt horribly uncertain. He felt terribly bashful and blind. On Haura, however...

He kneeled down and put his hand on Marc's head. She looked at him expectantly.

"Your mother did wear braids, along with her horsetail. Her hair curled like yours and it was very beautiful in the sunlight. It fell into her eyes like this-" he swept Marc's bangs to her ear where it rested for half a second before falling forward, "-and she used to mess it up when she was frustrated. And when she fought, it would fly out behind her, and sometimes, when we sparred, it would slap me in the face." Marc giggled under her father's hand.

Panne made the slightest snuffle of surprise and Lon'qu looked up at her. "You speak so fondly of her. You have a good memory." Panne explained, not willing to say more in front of Marc. He saw the questions in her eyes but he said nothing. Marc spoke up instead.

"Papa misses Mama a lot." Marc replied for him, solemnly. "But it's okay because I'm here and Mama loved us a lot. And I'll fight against the Risen now for her."

The two adults stared down at her in surprise, causing Marc to start to fidget.

"It's true, isn't it?" She asked, previous self-confidence gone. "I'm sorry I tried to cut my own hair but I was thinking, since I'm eleven, I should grow up and get a haircut like in that legend and join the army."

"Is that why...?" Lon'qu said, trying not to reveal how stunned he was. Then he shook his head and said, "I don't want you joining the army."

Marc opened her mouth to protest but he held up a hand.

"You're old enough to understand that the war is desperate. This is not like the old wars between kingdoms. Recruits with nearly no training are forced to fight because there is no choice. That is not a path to grow up. Your mother would not want that. I don't want that. I am not ready to contemplate my only daughter dying on some awful battlefield." Lon'qu tried not to grimace at how tears already started to form in the corners of Marc's eyes.

"Nonetheless, you should train her. Past the self defense basics." Panne interrupted and Lon'qu nearly rounded on her for intruding. "She wants to learn and she told me how rubbish she is at healing. She's already another mouth we have to feed, just because she's your and Haura's daughter doesn't mean she should avoid her eventual responsibility in this war."

Panne's cuttingly practical advice was just enough to deaden Lon'qu's retorts. Marc had never looked so glad to be called rubbish at something. He looked down at her, with her dark eyes bright and her mouth flushed with youthful determination. She looked as reckless and daring as they had been in their youth when they toppled the Mad King. She also had already swallowed her tears.

Lon'qu nodded. "I will start you on more formal training then. As a protector of Ylisstol and of Queen Olivia and Lucina and Inigo. I don't want you on front lines, I want you more trained and better than those, understand? And no complaining. You'll learn the Feroxi way which means long hours and lots of bruises." He said. Even if Panne snorted at the dramatics of it all, it was all worth it to see Marc light up and bounce up on her toes. She threw her arms around him and he picked her up with ease. She was so small that Lon'qu wondered at whether this was the right decision after all. Only when she buried her face into his neck and whispered, did he laugh and let go of his worries of a while.

"Just you wait, I'll be protecting you next!"


End file.
